Isaiah 1, "The Gospel in Isaiah"

You and I are living in chaos and uncertainty, and the chaos demands your attention. On average, Americans receive up to 80 notifications on their smartphones every day, not counting actual phone calls. And they pick up and check their phones 150 times per day. We are being conditioned to live in constant expectancy of news, most of it bad, and communication, most of it stunted and negative, and change, most of it for the worse. And everything is speeding up.

This is doing two things. One is a crippling of our bodies, “texting neck”. We are hunched over and staring downward most of the time. It is also crippling our souls with anxiety, depression, fear, and anger. These last two years have given us an opportunity to reset and start a new way of life. Will we take advantage of it, or will we keep our heads down, keep doing the same old things? It’s time for us to lift our eyes heavenward for a fresh vision.

The Vision, The Gospel, Prelude

This is the message of Isaiah for us today. Isaiah has a vision. It is a vision for the people of God during times of crisis and uncertainty. It begins as a vision of the people of God, distracted, corrupted, estranged from God. It ends with a vision for God’s people, to have hope; a vision of heaven and earth restored and reunited as a place of worship of God and a place of human flourishing.

But ultimately, Isaiah’s vision is a vision of a person. This person emerges as the vision unfolds. He fulfills everything the people of God had failed to do and be. And He redeems and restores the world to the glory of God. The person is Messiah.

Isaiah’s vision is the gospel of Jesus, before we knew His name. The gospel in Isaiah emerges like a drama that unfolds in four acts. And each act lifts the curtain a little higher until we see the full vision of Messiah ruling in the new heavens and new earth. As we live according to the gospel in Isaiah, we will grow in our faith in God who is in total control during times of crisis and become His partners in restoration.

Each of the acts in our gospel drama today begins with the voice of God calling out. Are we listening? In Act I, Isaiah calls on the heavens and earth itself to listen to the voice of the LORD.

The Vision, The Gospel, Act I, Creation

(1-9)

Isaiah 1:2 (ESV)

Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth;

for the Lord has spoken:

This is how the whole Bible started, and so where the gospel begins, in creation. God spoke, and the heavens and earth and everything in them came into being. At the pinnacle of creation, God made human beings as the one creature given the choice whether or not to listen to the voice of the LORD. God invites them into a partnership, spreading His dominion across the world. This is Act I of the gospel. This is life as it should be. Heaven and earth are one, God and human beings in union.

You were created to listen to and obey the voice of God.

But as the first act of Isaiah develops, we see that things are not as they should be. Isaiah’s vision continues with the testimony of God against His children. Though they have the word of God, they are not listening.

Isaiah 1:2–3 ESV

Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord has spoken: “Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.”

Isaiah 1:4 ESV

Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged.

Even an ox, a dumb animal, knows its owner. But Israel does not know or understand God, their Father. They have forsaken and despised Him. The resulting estrangement is depressing.

Isaiah uses imagery like a house of sticks (verse 8) or a city hollowed out by bombs (verse 9), inhabited by prostitutes, murderers, rebels, and thieves (verses 21-23). They continue with their religion and outward appearance of piety, but their hearts are corrupt with idolatry and greed.

Isaiah can see that the consequences of their sin will result in war and famine and disease. They will become like oak trees that have withered or like gardens that have dried up and ready to catch fire with just a spark.

(The garden and city imagery come from the opening chapters of the Bible also, in which humans either obey God’s voice and flourish or go their own way and build the cities like Sodom, Gomorrah, and Babylon. We’ll develop this theme later.)

This is a serious warning to anyone choosing to not listen to the voice of the LORD. Your life is being devastated by your sin and will end in a fiery destruction. And astonishingly, this warning is given to the children of God, estranged from the LORD. You can be God’s child but be estranged.

So we pause. As an evangelical church, we value the Word of God. We have access to more Bibles than any other group of people throughout history, or currently around the world. Is it possible that we could be devoted to knowing God’s word, but at the same time forsaking and estranged from the God who is speaking? Do I know my Bible better than I know God? Do I read the Bible, or do I listen for God’s voice and do what He says?

So, as Act II opens, the LORD calls out to a people enslaved to their own sin, and blind to their need.

The Vision, The Gospel, Act II, the Fall

(10-17)

Act II begins with an invitation from the LORD

Isaiah 1:10 ESV

Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom! Give ear to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah!

They are going through the motions of worship, but it is divorced from justice in their actions toward one another.

Isaiah 1:13 ESV

Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations— I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly.

Isaiah 1:16–17 ESV

Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.

More than religious acts of worship, God desires mercy. How do you measure true worship? Is it that we sing songs that are doctrinally correct and that we give our tithe and teach the Bible well? Isaiah says the test of true worship is a lifestyle of mercy flowing from a heart moved by God’s grace for me. Our Sunday mornings should fill us with such an awareness of God that it moves us into doing good and seeking justice for the poor, the orphans, the widows, immigrants, addicts, and prisoners the rest of the week. Anything less is an abomination to God. So God calls on Israel to wash themselves, make themselves clean.

There’s just one problem. Israel cannot cleanse herself. None of us can fix our selves. So there is a gathering storm. The Assyrian empire, followed by the Babylonian empire, will sweep through Israel and Judah like hurricanes.

But the good news is coming. While Israel cannot wash herself, God can and will. Storms are devastating in their destruction, but they also do good work: cleansing.

The Vision, The Gospel, Act III, Redemption

(18-23)

The good news begins in verse 18

Isaiah 1:18–19 ESV

“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land;

This is the center of the gospel. Our own sins take more than they give. They promise us relief from our problems. But they leave us stained, discouraged, drained, and unfruitful. And just like when we have dirty hands or filthy rags, whatever we do to clean the mess only spreads it around.

When people use technology, education, government, or money to fix our problems, it only corrupts more than it heals. We don’t need more tools. We need clean hearts. The vision is the people of God, cleansed of their sin, restoring their world to fruitfulness and flourishing.

How does this happen? It starts with an invitation from God Himself. He says, “Come now,” listen and argue back if you want to (another translation of “let us reason together”). He will cleanse your sin-stained life. He will restore you. But if you refuse and rebel, your sin will consume you.

How am I listening and obeying God’s voice in ways that cleanse me and restore me to be an agent of restoration in the world?

Messiah begins to emerge here. He will fulfill all of God’s promises. He will rescue, cleanse, restore, heal and help. The imagery of sins like scarlet and cleansing as white as snow leads us to the cross of Jesus Christ.

The Vision, The Gospel, Act IV, Restoration

(24-31)

Israel’s sins are no different than ours. Every one of us has worshipped idols, by looking to created things for our sense of meaning, so we are faithless (v. 21). Every one of us has murdered someone in our heart with hatred and anger (v. 21). Every one of us has been guilty of one or more of the sins of rebellion against God, or taking what belongs to others, or manipulating to get our own way, or taking advantage of people weaker than us instead of defending their cause (v. 23).

The bad news of the gospel is that because God loves the helpless, He will avenge Himself on those who continue in injustice.

Isaiah 1:24 ESV

Therefore the Lord declares, the Lord of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel: “Ah, I will get relief from my enemies and avenge myself on my foes.

And here is the good news of the gospel. The storm of God’s wrath for injustice, foretold by Isaiah, for all of these sins, has already been poured out on Jesus on the cross. For all who repent of their sin and unite ourselves to Jesus by faith, we are redeemed, as Isaiah says in verse 27, by justice and righteousness. Not our own, but Christ’s.

So, our redemption is not ours, it is His. He has redeemed us. His payment was so complete, the final act in the gospel is total restoration through redemption.

Isaiah 1:25–26 ESV

I will turn my hand against you and will smelt away your dross as with lye and remove all your alloy. And I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning. Afterward you shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city.”

After this promise of restoration, Isaiah’s final act closes on a heavy note.

Isaiah 1:27–28 ESV

Zion shall be redeemed by justice, and those in her who repent, by righteousness. But rebels and sinners shall be broken together, and those who forsake the Lord shall be consumed.

The good news, the gospel, ends with a warning. If you continue to forsake the LORD, God will lay waste your life. So we’ll end here, leaving this hanging question. Are you listening to the voice of God?

We are living in times much like Isaiah’s. There is a gathering storm. Everyone feels it, but most people don’t know what it is. It isn’t the corruption in Congress. It isn’t the wrath of a foreign dictator. It isn’t the persecution of Christian faith. The gathering storm is the wrath of God for sin. And when Jesus returns, He will bring it as a cleansing agent for our world. He will restore all things in heaven and earth to the glory of God and human flourishing.

Are you listening to God in ways that your faith is growing and you are becoming an agent of restoration in our chaotic world? Or are you an estranged child, continuing to read your Bible and go to church, but you don’t really know God? God’s voice has called to you four times today. Hear the word of the LORD.

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